WHEN LIFE IS A VENDING MACHINE

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You Are What You’ve Eaten…

I know this entry will piss off several self-help authors who have done their best to help those living with the ghosts from their past.

I’ve read Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s search for Meaning”. I’ve also read Susan Anderson’s “Journey from Abandonment to healing”.  One is history and the other good intentions.

The only line that I can say is true comes from the songwriter Todd Rundgren.  Todd wrote in his song “Parallel Lines” ~ “Understanding won’t satisfy the hunger”.

Let’s say that at the age of nine, your caretaker stopped feeding you.  You were forced to eat food from vending machines. After years of counseling, you discover that you died spiritually because the food you once enjoyed was taken away.  You still remember the smell of vanilla from whatever was baking in the oven.  You remember the smell of oregano and tomatoes from that special sauce.  You even remember a special dish that you can’t even describe. All you remember is that after you ate it, it defined you. You became “All you could be”.

Now it’s gone.

Your therapist tells you: “Your problem is simple.  You miss your caretaker’s cooking.  In fact, YOU HUNGER FOR THAT ONE SPECIFIC DISH.  Do you understand now? You HUNGER FOR THAT ONE DISH.”

Thanks for explaining that.  I’ll spend the next 50 years hungering and searching for that dish.  Can you tell me how to cure this hunger?  I know I’m hungry.  I don’t need to spend $200.00 an hour to hear that I’m hungry. My stomach doesn’t charge me a penny to hear it grumble.

What?  The recipe died with the caretaker?  Maybe I can find someone else that can cook like the caretaker?  No!  Her recipe isn’t even close.  Not only did it not taste like the original recipe, she burned down my house and half of everything I owned.

In a perverted way, I get enjoyment out of finding things I’ve lost because it gives me the feeling of finding that recipe.  I think I’m even rude to imposters who try to cook that recipe but haven’t a clue.

King Solomon writes in Ecclesiastes: “The Day you die is better than the Day you are Born”.  Yes, ignorance is bliss.  Had I never tasted that wonderful recipe, I would not be “HUNGERING” or “SEARCHING” for it.  I would be quite content with vending machine food and frozen burritos. It’s been 52 years and I can still taste every bite.

Not only did that recipe taste so wonderful; it gave me incredible energy and charisma.  I was a better person after I ate that meal.  I felt so happy that others’ liked being around me.  I could fly with wings of eagles after eating that meal.  Now I just fall off of rooftops.  Everything I try to do comes from how wonderful I remember feeling after eating that recipe that is now gone.

I’ve spent my entire life trying to replicate how that recipe made me feel.  I do all the things that recipe gave me the magic to do but people can tell I’m not eating the same recipe.  I’m an empty shell of the guy they used to love to be around. I’ve spent my entire life searching for that lost recipe.  It’s been a journey with no destination.

A Death Movie Marathon

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Las night I had a “Death” movie mini-marathon. The 4 movies I viewed were “The Bucket List” starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, My Life a movie about a cancer victim coming to grips with is life review starring Michael Keaton and Nichole Kidman.  The 5 people you meet in haven starring Joh Voight and a Movie that almost fell into my lap called Fearless starring Jeff Bridges.  A movie about death Survivors.  But strangely enough this movie had the most effect on me although it was the furthest from the death scenario.

Bucket List:

The movie started a movement when it came out. People started writing down things they wanted to accomplish before the: “Kick the Bucket”.  In the Movie Morgan Freeman finds himself in a 2 bed hospital room with the billionaire philanthropist/owner of the hospital played superbly by Jack Nicholson.  Now most of us would be lucky to do half the things Jack and Morgan do.  But in the end, the movie comes down to the same purpose.  Resolving unresolved issues.

My Life:

Robert/Bob/Bobbie/Jones/Ivanovich is a Detroit Russian that leave Michigan for L.A. to become a successful P.R. man. The movie starts with his fatal diagnosis.  He also finds that his beautiful wife (Nicole Kidman) is pregnant.  So most of the movie is Michael Keaton documenting thousands of feet of video for his son to appreciate after Keaton’s death.  Keaton visits a Cambodian healer who tells him the cause of his cancer is an anger that’s been in his body since his childhood.

The Five People you meet in Heaven:

This Movie is quite mundane compared to the other 2 movies. Spoiler* The premise of the five people you meet in heaven are people that played an important role in your life.  Some you may not even know.  Jon Voight should have won an Oscar for his performance.

Fearless:

Seriously, I was not intending to watch this movie. I was trying to make room for the 3 movies I had just watched and this Movie literally “presented its self” as if to say: “You need to watch me”!  The movie starts with the crash of a 727 Jet from SF to Dallas.  Jeff Bridges plays “Max” who walks away from the wreckage and saves many lives in doing so.  To make the movie more interesting, prior to the crash, Max has a tremendous fear of flying.  But at a poignant moment as the plane is going down, he assesses the situation and realizes he’s not afraid.  He straps himself into a seat next to a 10 year old child who is forced to sit alone.

The movie starts out with him carrying a baby and the survivors following Max through a corn field. Max loses any fears he has as he feels or thinks, he’s a ghost.  The first experiment he does is goes to a diner and orders a fruit platter.  He is deathly allergic to Strawberries.  He east a whole serving of strawberries with no anaphylactic response what so ever.  He stands on the ledge of a sky scraper and dances in a state of delirium.

In the end, he is talked back in to this realm of reality and has on last bout with strawberries.

My message from this movie (which was only the 2nd time I had seen it) was that God is a powerful God. There have been reports of people falling from airplanes thousands of feet and walking away without a scratch.

There are a few lines that stand out in the 4 movies I watched.

When you get to Heaven you will be asked 2 questions: “Did you experience Joy in your life” and “Did your life bring Joy to someone else’s life”?

“It’s the anger that is causing your cancer!”

“I died so you could live. We are all part of each other.”

“Do you want to spend the remaining days of your life making your relatives and friends feel sorry for you; or do you want to spend them living life to its fullest?”

 

A Toxic Sunrise

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A BLATANTANT EXAMPLE OF CHEMTRAILS NOT CONTRAILS

 

This has been happening since the great Bee die off of 2008.  It was the first time we’d heard the Term Chem-Trail.  Of course there are pilots who fear losing their FAA license who will not say the Chem word and insist on calling them Con Trails.  Condensation vs. Chemical Trails.  If you want to get the basics on the composition of that Tic-Tac-Toe board in your sky, just search YouTube for “Bio-Engineering” which is what ChemTrail believers are calling it.

There are Three basic reasons for polluting our once Beautiful Blue Skies.

1. Agenda 21.  The depopulation of the globe.  The Chemicals the planes are spraying are lethal to man in the  long term.  Some have blamed the spraying of our atmosphere for the death of the bee population which in itself could be the end of man.  Monsanto, (maker of GMO seeds) also profits from the control of pollination.  No bees no blossoms.

2. The camouflage of the Planet X or Nibiru Star system entering our galaxy.  This is evident by the Sunrise and Sunset Spraying.  Those obvious crosses in the sky are often sprayed between metropolitan cities and the direction of the sun.  Just get up at Sunrise and look in the direction of the sun.  THEN look around to see if you see any other Jet-Trails in the sky…….

3. The most pernicious of the three and hardest to prove would be the materialization of the atmosphere.  Since Magnesium and Barium are the two main particles being sprayed, it makes the sky more conductive. Why make the sky conductive?  In Alaska we have the H.A.A.R.P. system.  It’s basically a death Ray designed from Nikola Tesla’s inventions.  (The Mad Scientist) HAARP stands for High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program.  It’s a set of massive antennae designed to fire electric bursts into the upper atmosphere.  In short.  The U.S. government has weaponized the weather.  Many claim HAARP was used in the Gulf to stimulate the many destructive Hurricanes.  We first used the weather as a weapon in Vietnam when we “seeded the clouds”.  We made the Ho-Chi-Man trail to muddy to transport ammo and food to the Viet Cong gorillas fighting in the south.   Some have claimed that HAARP scientist are using the ionosphere or Ozone layer to bounce and reflect deadly HAARP beams back to earth.  Again, the spraying is seeding the sky.  It’s also damaging the Ozone layer which could also be a main reason for the increasingly high UV levels we say this summer.  In July many parts of the country had 6 – 8 weeks of level 10 UV radiation.

Many noticed that the spraying had stopped in the first 6 months of 2017.  The rumor was that President Trump had written an executive order bringing an end to the spraying of Chem-Trails.  But Monsanto and other large members of the Military industrial Complex have given the 45th president the finger and started up again in July.

Many wonder if the Los Angeles and NorCal fires were started by HAARP.  Not to mention the West Coast drought.

 

Here is a short video I took this morning to prove that what your seeing in the skies is not air traffic as usual.

 

 

NORA EPHRON and The Romantic Comedy

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A Nora Ephron Film Festival

 

When I first noticed the name Nora Ephron, it was in 1989 after watching “When Harry Met Sally”. In the 80s, I had developed a covert crush on Meg Ryan.  She was the ultimate girl next door.  She portrayed the girl you wanted to bring home to meet your parents.  If you’ve read my articles, you know what a tragedy it was when she became addicted to aesthetic surgery.  *(See Ace’s crushes Then & Now)

I’ve recently been forced into some “down time” so I decided to have a Nora Ephron film Festival. Ms. Ephron and often her sister Delia wrote and or directed 3 very successful romantic comedies.  In addition to her debut award winner “Silkwood”, which was a multi-Oscar award winner, she is best known for her work specifically with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks.  Such movies include “You’ve got mail” and “Sleepless in Seattle”.   In addition to her work with Meg Ryan, she blossomed in the romantic comedy genre with the 1989 box office hit “When Harry met Sally”.  This work starred Billy Crystal as her leading man.  The three films make for a pleasant afternoon of “Binge watching”.

 

The Ryan/Hanks team originally started in an obscure Hanks filmed called “Joe versus the Volcano”. It’s a film that Ephron would be glad to say she had nothing to do with.  Meg Ryan had actually hit the spotlight in the hit movie “Top Gun” starring Tom Cruise.  Her “Girl Next Door” attractiveness did not go unnoticed.  Although not much of a role, it was the hit movie that would land her a role in the movie inner-space starring her soon to be husband Dennis Quaid.

 

With the chemistry between Tom Hanks (The boy next door) and Meg Ryan, Nora Ephron had a winning couple she could create screenplays for. She wrote all the screenplays for all three romantic comedies.  “When Harry met Sally” was directed by Rob Reiner (Meathead of all in the family).  Nora would direct the following two movies “Sleepless and You’ve got mail”.

 

A new flavor of romantic comedy

What gave Nora Ephron movies a special flavor was her use of the soundtrack. Rob Reiner used the Standards as the soundtrack for “When Harry Met Sally”.  I believe Reiner was borrowing a tool from New York’s Woody Allen.  You can’t go wrong when scoring a movie set in New York with songs written by Rogers and Hart and the voice of Frank Sinatra and Harry Connick Jr.  This movie has remnants of the movie “Annie Hall” written all over it.  Reiner’s use of off-screen interviews with couples who were supposedly in four to five decade relationships were very “Allenesque”.

In her last movie with Hanks and Ryan, “You’ve got mail”, Ephron went with a soundtrack from more of the 70’s.  In fact reading the Soundtrack credit is often more interesting than the cast.  “You’ve got mail” was filmed in the late 90s which was the era of the PC.  I believe Ms. Ephron was trying to appeal to a new audience even though the movie was set in New York.  This time she tried something new.  “You’ve got mail” is cut like a cartoon.  If you close your eyes and listen to the sound of the staccato strings; it sounds like a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

The sound track in the earlier movie “Sleepless in Seattle” was more traditional like Reiner’s Rat Pack soundtrack with a few timely exceptions. She comes into the 50s and 70s for Joe Cocker’s version of Bye-bye Black Bird.  She even uses Hank Williams’ “Back in the Saddle again” just after Tom Hanks exclaims: “I’m getting laid this weekend”. (Not the first time the song was used as a prelude to sex)  It wouldn’t surprise me if the soundtrack sold more CDs than the movie sold DVDs. (Not taking from the movie one bit)

Sadly, Meg Ryan’s insecurities made her an unwanted commodity.   Her need for cosmetic surgery brought the Hanks/Ryan team to an end as Hanks had begun to produce films like “That Thing You Do” and Ryan was no longer the girl next door.

 

After 1998’s “You’ve got mail”, Nora Ephron would go on to write 4 more screenplays before calling it quits. The most notable of the 3 was “Bewitched”.   In 2012 Ms. Ephron would die of pneumonia secondary to Leukemia.

We do however; have the three gems of 1989, 1993 and 1998 to keep in our collection as perhaps the top Romantic Comedies of all-time.

Divorce Burial & Ressurection

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Hello old friends,

Let me first start this entry by saying your host is single as of August 30th.  Remember that date.  I will do an article on that date.

18k yellow gold wedding rings

12 years ago I opened the Cafe for chit chat.  The cafe went through some changes.  In 2014 a certain personality from Fox news was using my material and I enjoyed being his ghost writer.

Years passed and my articles became mainly about relationships, religion, God (don’t confuse the two) and the paranormal.

My last entry was June 18th, but the entries were getting farther and farther apart starting back in February.  I found myself losing my edge.  Then I lost most everything in July.  It hit me like a Tsunami.  I can’t say I didn’t see it coming because even a Tsunami gives you 15 minutes of warning as it sucks the surf out to sea before returning it 100 feet high.

So I’ve been rediscovering myself as I carry on the household responsibilities alone. (With 3 Siamese, a Wolf and a loyal loving German Shepheard who is 12 and knocking on Heaven’s door.)  Please keep in mind, age is not a disease.

That being said.  I’m BACK!

THE SECRET TO SUCCESS IN MUSIC

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Jimmy Buffet said something 20 years ago that (in retrospect) I believe is BS. But for the sake of argument, I’ll repeat it.

  1. You need to have talent.
  2. You need to be persistent
  3. You need to be Lucky

#3 helps, but Mr. Parrot head said you had to have all three. 2/3 doesn’t work.

I call BS on #3. Yes, #3 can be what you owe your success to, but I wouldn’t make it a part of my business plan.  If you have a following, you’re doing something right and success will find you.  Even if it’s just one song or painting.

If I wanted to make this article really long; I would have written on things that kill a career in the arts.

So here’s the secret. (Something I learned too late in life).  So here it is.  This will probably be the most important post regarding a career in music and I think the principles apply in general.

  1. You need to have talent (*Buffet rule #1)
  2. You need to be Passionate about your music or art.
  3. ***MOST IMPORTANTLY ~ You need to focus on ONE AREA or GENRE.

I don’t care if you’re Barry White or Rammstein. #3 is the MOST IMPORTANT ELEMENT.

What sucks is if you are a really good singer, chances are you Love Frank Sinatra and Luther Vandross as much as you do Freddie Mercury and Luciano Pavorotti. If you’re a music lover; you Love Glenn Miller as much as you do The Ramones.  A true Music Lover has the worst chance of being a successful musician.  It’s fine if you want to be the next Lee Ritenour. (A studio Musician) But you’re not going to be the next Ramones if you want to play “Rage against the machine”.

One thing Dan Baird, the Lead singer of the Georgia Satellites said was when he decided to play roots rock, (Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly) He had to put away his “YES” albums.

A Brand name is probably more important than skill. Take Buddy Holly for example.  And Buddy is a roots rocker that I love, but his songs are mainly 3 chord songs in A.  But what he was doing was HIS.  (His other amazing contributions to music notwithstanding).  Buddy Holly is arguably the most important person to affect modern music.  Sure he did what Les Paul was doing, but Buddy changed the Industry. But I digress.

Very few bands can pull off the Chameleon reinvention genre that Queen did. I doubt anyone else ever will.

If you love Metal music AND you can appreciate Johnny Mathis, you’re going to struggle gaining a following. What’s worse is, even if you have the skill to be the next guitarist for Metallica, if you still love The Eagles, you’re never going to be happy.  Let me give you food for thought.

Look at Weird Al Yankovic. He’s creative.  But if he ever tried to go legit, he would lose his loyal audience.

Metallica cut their hair and their audience started calling them sellouts.

I’m not saying you need to be the musical equivalent of AC/DC or the Ramones or even James Taylor. But when you hear the name James Taylor, you know what you’re getting.  I doubt John Fogarty would be successful today if not for CCR.  If he had kept doing the Bayou music, he would have been “The Man” at Gumbo festivals.

As long as your musical style is consistent, you can be George Thorogood and play a Hank Williams song (Move it on over) and have a hit. You can be Little Richard and play a Hank Williams song (Love sick blues) and have a hit.  When both artists did their Hank Williams covers, the song sounded like them, not Hank Williams.

Can you imagine going to see Stevie Ray Vaughan and having him come out and play Barry Manilow?   Or go to a YES concert and sit through 2 hours of country music?  Anyone that’s ever made it, made it because they were associated with a genre.  Even if you were the Rolling Stones playing Robert Johnson blues songs, you were a British invasion group.

As for Jimmy Buffet’s rule #3, tell Kurt Cobain he was lucky.   He was brilliant.  Kurt and other coffee addicts in Seattle created a genre that hit the charts like a cruise missile.  Then Hollywood had to find their own clones (or clowns) to mimic the grunge sound.  And in 3 years you had Grunge in the music rack with Glenn Miller and Elvis.

Pick one genre and stick to it. Give the people what they came to hear.  The more you enjoy what you’re doing, the less like work it will be and you will become the definition or Icon of that genre.  When you start your career, approach it like you want to be the new “King of _____ music.  BB King was called the King of the Blues.  James Brown was the godfather of soul.  Elvis the King of Rock.  Michael Jackson was the King of Pop. Nirvana  is the King of Grunge. Sinatra was the king of the Standards. Hank Williams is the father of country music.

Pick a sound you love and go with it. Live it.  If you’re a punk; wear a leather biker jacket to weddings and Levi jeans with holes in the knees. (And always wear a spiked wrist band) BE THE FIRST GROUP OR SINGER THAT PEOPLE THINK OF WHEN THEY MENTION YOUR GENRE.  THAT’S THE SECRET TO SUCCESS.  Be Monet’s Lilly pads.  Be Michael Jackson’s “Moon Walk”.

When someone asks: “What kind of music do you play?” Be able to answer it in less than 3 words and 5 seconds. Preferably one word.

Nothing Fails like Success

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Stephen R. Covey said it. I can sum it up in one word.  Pagers.  Or if you need another example; Video cassette recorders.

But this conversation is about MUSIC. Being a musician from the age of 6, I’ve followed every new trend that was introduced.  I’ve listened to everything from the blues sung in the cotton fields of Mississippi, to German Thrash Metal and Neo-Classical.

In 1956, the genres of blues, rock and country had a serendipitous collision with a guy named Elvis Presley at the wheel. More important than Elvis was a guy named Sam Phillips.  He’s the father of Rock and Roll.  Sam was a recording engineer that loved recording music.  All sorts of music.  He even went into the Oklahoma State Prison to record a quartet of black inmates that could sing.

You all know the story of Buddy Holly and the Beatles, if not, I’ve written a few articles on the History of Rock and Roll. Just use the search button.  I want to take a very close look at the British invasion as I believe it was the British I hold responsible for a mongrel genre called “Classic Rock”.  What Elvis and Buddy Holly, even Chuck Berry and Little Richard were singing is now called “Roots Rock”.  As in “The beginning or foundation of Rock and Roll”.  It was this blend of Blues and country that gave us the musical ideas for The Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

If you look at the first albums of The Beatles, the Rolling Stones and many of the legends, they were all covering Robert Johnson blues songs, in fact the first recording the Beatles did as a demo was “That’ll be the day”. (Buddy Holly)

But the longer a Genre is bastardized, the more abundant it becomes. It’s hard to write a Rock song that doesn’t fall into the washed out category of classic rock.  For those musicians that scored hits in the 70s and into the 80s, they saturated the Genre until it was a cup of worms.   Frankly Classic Rock was pushed to the point of decadence.  In the 90s, grunge came in like a cruise missile and bands that were in the top 10 on the charts were losing their contracts.  Labels were catching direct flights from LAX to SeaTac airport and were signing bands they hadn’t even seen. (Just heard about) “There’s gold in them there hills”.

So what happened to the stable artists that could be relied on for a Platinum album? They were told not to let the door hit them in the ass.  One hair band artist from L.A. that belonged to a Spandex/Aquanet band that still had an album on the charts (Falling like a meteorite) was reported as saying he couldn’t get a job at Tower Records.

This article is about a very legitimate Classic Rock artist that was shown the door because of a change in the music industry. He was the first “Victim” of the music channel MTV.  In 1980, MTV was basically the only game in town.  MTV made and MTV took away.  It had that much influence. Up until 1984 MTV videos supported music released by the artist.  (Until the “Rock Me Tonight” Video by Billy Squier).

Before MTV, most music videos where live recordings, or even studio recordings of bands or singers performing. Then they became little movies and the song became nothing more than a soundtrack.   Before MTV, you heard the song on the radio and you made your own movie in your head.

Before MTV, Billy Squier had two Albums that would have made any record company fight over. “Don’t Say No” and “Emotions in Motion” were both double platinum.  Squier had 28 hits songs that charted.  Then he was forced, perhaps coerced to release the “Rock me tonight” video.  Rock me tonight was a hit on the radio .  The video was a hit, but more of a left hook that took Squier down, career and all.

Fast forward 24 years. Billy Squier in a recent interview said He listened to his first Album that didn’t chart.  “Tell the Truth” (1993) was the 3rd album after the atrocious video that soiled the mind of concert goers and 12″ vinyl buyers.  1993 was the height of the “Grunge” movement in Seattle and Squier was told that Capitol records was not going to support the album.  No ads in rock magazines. No MTV interviews, don’t let the door……..

Squier said after decades he listened to “Tell the Truth” and he had such verve as to say that he put on The Beatles’ “Revolver”, Led Zeppelin’s “2nd album” then “Tell the Truth”. He then said: “I felt that “Tell the Truth” stood up well next to those Iconic Rock Albums.

“In short, “I agree”.

In Squier’s defense, I had been given a copy of the cassette back in 1993. I remember playing it a lot.  But “Revolver”? Zeppelin’s II”?  Is he crazy?  So I went on Amazon and bought a copy of “Tell the Truth”.  I had forgotten how good this album is.

There is not a thing wrong with this album. I won’t review it as I don’t do album reviews.  I will say this: “Had Kurt Cobain not been discovered in an obscure club in Seattle; I believe this album would have charted in the top 10.

If I can use an analogy? Billy, this is one of the best radio pagers ever made.

On a deeper note; be thankful for what you have or had. Life is too short for regrets.  I’ve been saying for the last 30 years, if the Beatles were an unknown band in Liverpool playing the music they wrote.  Songs we call classics such as “Strawberry Fields” or “Yesterday”; they would never see a record contract. However; if they made the most dreadful “dissonant” unheard of noise and talked trash about a politician, added 16 bars of hate, I’m sure it would go viral.

This is one of my favorite songs on the Album.

 

 

 

Repetitive Times Revisited

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The following is strictly my anecdotal observations on the repetitive time phenomena.  If you want to read how rare it is that you will glance up and see a time of 1:11, 2:22, 3:33 etc… and specifically 11:11, go back to my original article on repetitive times.

https://acescafeamericain.com/2014/12/05/dates-times-and-repetitive-numbers/

On May 1st, I saw 2:22 and took a screen shot.  I told myself that every time I saw a repetitive number that I would take a screen shot.  Today is the 1st of June and I knew by the 3rd of May that something was going on.  I was correct.  By May 3rd I had 4 repetitive number screen shots.  (Remember these do not include the kitchen digital stoves or other LED clocks around the house).

Once again; I knew by the 3rd of May that something was going on.

Major fires started in May.  It was a month I would describe as full of misunderstandings and poor choices of words misunderstood verbal forest fires were blazing.  I will go so far as to say that, like many articles on the net, repetitive numbers are your angels Or as some call them, “Spirit guides”, are trying to get your attention.  Unfortunately, I went back over my phone to see if any major impact calls corresponded with any of these repetitive times.  They did correlate to several phone calls but not enough to create an “aha” moment.

My non-scientific observations lead me to this conclusion.  If you start seeing multiple repetitive digital times on your IPhone or LED clock; know that something of importance is going down and you need to (as they say in the godfather) “Go to the Mattresses.

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/159900.html

 

The Christian Church

by in Personal Development, Spiritual Relilgion | Leave a comment

churchwhite

 

Sunday Sermon 2/5/2017

 

“I believe in God, but not religion.” ~ Gil Grissom

When I was single, I used to date women that would say: “I’m not religious but I’m spiritual”. It’s not the same.  We are all spiritual.  As Teilhard De Chardin wrote: “We are not humans having a spiritual experience; rather Spirits having a human experience”.  Religion is a belief in an afterlife based on stories passed down through history.  Spirituality is the energy force that powers your physical vessel it occupies while existing in this dimension.

Yeah, heavy, I know!

2017 years ago the Messiah said, upon this rock I shall build “My Church”.   I believe He did.  To quote Agent Mulder: “The Truth is out there”.  During the first Century A.D. the teachings of Christ were already being distorted.  The 12 Apostles were spreading the teachings as they understood them, but the people in the assemblies were making their own rules.  It’s Ironic because the Pharisees loved rules and felt that all they needed to do was “follow the rules” and they were in the heavenly Que.

The Church of Californians

In Corinth, the church became divided amongst the apostles, as one contingency would say I am of Paul and another would say I am of Peter.

The division had begun. People were of Christ through someone else.  That’s sort of how the Catholic Church works today.  Catholics are of the Pope.

Some are of Martin Luther. (Lutherans). Some are of John the Baptists. (Ad prefix + Baptist Church).

Some are of John Smith. Some are of Space Aliens.

As I study the Bible, neither Peter, Paul, Martin Luther, the Pope, John the Baptist or John Smith died for your sins.

Somewhere on this planet, Satan was able to divide and attempt to conquer.   He used Sal Alinski’s rules for radicals.  Turn Christians against one another.  Hang suspected witches.  Yet Christ said: “Let he who is without sin throw the first stone”. I don’t blame the decline of culture and mores for the lack of attendance in the Church.  I blame the lack of Truth being taught in the church to accommodate today’s moral decay.  Why is the Rock Band more important than Holy Communion?  Why do those who are invited to come forward for Baptism, done so in the presence of a Hammond B3 Organ playing major 7th chords?  Does this make the commitment seem more righteous? I love God, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  But what were once secret living rooms, are now concert halls/503Cs.  Baptism is now an inconvenience rather than a public show of faith.  So most churches avoid the numerous verses in the Bible about being baptized.  I call that Burger King Christianity.  “Have it Your Way”.  It doesn’t work like that.

In the end; your salvation is between you and The Creator.  None of us are perfect.  It’s getting harder and harder to worship in a church that interprets the Bible as it was taught in the first century. IF you are not a Christian or a self-proclaimed Christian and read the New Testament in search of the requirements of salvation; you’ll find 5 basic indicators throughout the New Testament and finally, a wink and a nod in the book of Matthew.

  1.  Hear the Gospel
  2. Believe that Christ is The Messiah (Sent down as the Son of God to die for your soul)
  3. Confess that you are a sinner
  4. Repent or try to stop sinning. The trying is the important part.
  5. Be Baptized. If you want to have fun, take a Bible program and look up how times Baptism is mentioned and how many times it is directly associated with salvation.If you are not a member of a Christian Church, find 3 believers and one who knows how to baptize.  Ask them to explain the Gospel to you (Hear) Tell them with open mouth that you believe Jesus died for your sins.  Admit that you are an imperfect human that sins.  Say that you will repent from your earthly sinful direction.  Then find a hot tube, swimming pool and if needed, get down to the “River” and have one of the believers proclaim that they are baptizing you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  Then submerge you in water.  If you do this. (Including the full submersion part) you will begin your relationship with Christ.  He will know you.  You will not hear Matthew 7:21.  You won’t be perfect which is why when we pray; we ask for forgiveness of our sins.  Remember in Driver’s Education they say you break the law every 7 seconds while behind the wheel without knowing it? (Hyperbole I’m sure), Your life as a new Christian will be somewhat of the same nature.  So when you pray, always ask for forgiveness AND never hesitate to forgive those you have put one over on you.If you are on life support in an ICU ward; remember that God can save whom ever He wants.  Don’t wait until you’re on a respirator in intensive care.

 

The Wink and the Nod: Matthew 7:21

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’

The key is the part in BOLD. “I never knew you”.  This goes back to my statement about your salvation being between you and The Creator.  Sitting in the back pew every Sunday for 52 weeks a year will not save you. You have to exercise trust and faith and reach out for something that is not directly visible.  By doing this, you are making an appeal to Christ for a relationship.

You have no proof of what lays ahead of you after this life. So you need to decide if this story that’s been around for over 2000 years is as real as the miracles written about; or if you want to go on living in a point and shoot existence.  We already accept that there are forces that exist which are not in the visual field of the human eye.  We have discovered that everything in this consciousness is energy.  Finally we’ve been given an example of two humans who died and came back to life.  Christ brought Lazarus back from death after 3 days.  Then Christ Himself was risen from the dead after 3 days of death.  He did this to prove that there was life in another place. Another dimension not visible to us.  We need to use faith and love as our ticket to this dimension.

In closing let me just add this.  You can not lose your salvation.  But The Creator will not force you to love Him.  He respects your free will enough to let you walk away from your salvation.

Circadian Rhythm

by in Health, Personal Development, Sports | Leave a comment

brain

clock

The Rhythm of Living

Did you know that there exists within your brain a particle called the “Suprachiasmatic nucleus”?  It’s often referred to as your body’s Master Clock.  It tells you when should hit the sack and also when to wake up.

The concept of Circadian Rhythm is more than just your body’s time clock.  There are other mysteries in life that are related to the SCN that “Chronobiologists” are just beginning to understand. (And not).  The power of suggestion is so strong it can often over-ride your SCN.  For example, the SCN uses surrounding environmental conditions to tell you to wake up.  The sunrise is a great example.

 

sunrise

 

When I first started touring the U.S. I had trouble on the east coast having come from Pacific Standard Time.  For me, waking at 6AM was like waking at 3AM.  I soon learned that the natural way to not sleep through your wake up call was to leave the curtains open.  Yes the Sun would wake me at 3AM PST if I needed to be up at 6AM EST.

Add the power of suggestion.  I was told that if I had been drinking on that long flight from LAX to Logan, to take 2 Tylenol and tell myself that I was going to awaken at 6AM feeling refreshed and full of energy.

It works.

Although I quit drinking several years ago, I still use this if I have to wake at 3AM PST to catch a 6AM flight.   But let’s go deeper into the SCN’s influence.  A study was done about 40 years ago on young ladies in sororities. The results would make Esther Williams proud.  In a house with 6 females, in time, they would all have synchronized menstrual cycles.  Again, the theory of external ambience would alert the SCN that it was time to cleanse the uterus.  Be it the subconscience smell of menstrual blood or the Tampon wrappers in the trash can.

toilets

The same function as the sun coming through the Hotel window would trigger a chronobiological response.  Did you ever wonder why you could hold your bladder on a long car trip, but as soon as you got through the front door of your home, you practically had to reach down to hold your urethra shut?  Your body knew the spot of urination was close.

Fascinating, yes?

Try explaining mutually synchronized orgasms.  Try and explain the Pavlovian response to the smell of garlic, onions, oregano and Olive oil.

trinity

 

Finally, and I can’t begin to explain this last example.  When spouses in long-term relationships or “LTRs” (I don’t know if they have to be close relationships, meaningful or just proximity) pass; the average time left for the surviving spouse is 2 – 9 years.  It’s easy to understand that if we’re talking about a couple in their 70s, sure it’s not unusual for anyone to die in that decade of life.  The problem is it happens earlier.  (Sometimes in their 50s).  I will admit 7 years is a long spread but most close LTR couples tend to pass on the 2 year end of the time period.

At this point in my life experience, I feel that we die when we are ready to die.  When we lose a spouse or friend that we included in our daily lives, and they pass, it leaves us thinking we should go with them if we have no reason to continue living.  Often when the other spouse continues past 9 years, we find that their work was their reason for living.  This could be a reason why so many veterans with PTSD pull the plug on life.  For that matter anyone who has had a life altering event.  A beautiful model who had her face scared in an automobile accident and is no longer acceptable as a cover model falls victim to depression and then suicide.  Much can be written about the many child stars that would grow up only to outgrow the cute 7 year old sitcom star.  We see these young talents committing suicide as a result of feeling that their life has no purpose.  They stop getting outside attention and lose that inner love for themselves. (Which turns to depression etc….)

 

kirby

Perhaps one of the greatest Baseball Players the state of Minnesota ever saw was a fantastic center fielder named Kirby Puckett.  He was an annual All-star and a pillar in the community.  In 1995 Puckett took a fastball in the eye from opposing pitcher and friend Dennis Martinez.  Puckett was at the zenith of his career.  He was winning batting titles and took the Twins to the World series twice.

During the following spring, Puckett was putting up impressive batting numbers once again hitting .344 in the Grapefruit league.  On a morning in March, Puckett awoke to blindness in his right eye.  He had developed Glaucoma which was left untreated over the off-season.  In 1996 the phenom center fielder could no longer play the game and was forced to retire after 3 unsuccessful operations on his eye.

Leaving the game he loved was a sudden and traumatic turn for the all-star.  Puckett would live another 9 years and die at the young age of 45 due to a Stroke. His life after early retirement was not one of bliss.  He would divorce his wife and later go on to gain weight which was a concern to those who knew him.  He let himself go.  His weight was estimated at over 300 pounds  He was the Youngest Hall of famer of modern times to die.  (2nd all time to only Lou Gehrig).

kirbyobese

 

What does the SCN or Circadian rhythm have to do with life?  It seems everything.  We have free will and our nucleus time clock responds to our intentions.  When we stop loving ourselves, we have nothing left to live for.  When we feel or tell ourselves we have nothing to live for, we die.